Carguments: A Collection
by TB's LMC
Summary: Because I love the carguments, and simply decided I had to write some of my own.
1. Getting Divorced

**Cargument 1: Getting Divorced**

"You just _had_ to go and do it, didn't you."

Steve shot a look across the car at Danny. A look he wasn't sure how Danny would interpret, but which he meant to say, and very sheepishly, _Um, maybe, depending on which 'it' you're talking about._

Sighing dramatically and cupping his own face with his hand, Danny ran it all the way from his forehead down to his chin until it bottomed out and flapped up into the air like a wayward seagull. Steve found that immediately snort-worthy, but quickly forced his face into a frown when Danny's stink-eye made itself quite known.

_Well, shit. Your hand flapping like a seagull _is_ funny, Danno._

"You simply had no other choice at eight o'clock last night when we were tucking my precious, innocent little girl into my admittedly shitty fold-out bed, that you along with her father who works extremely hard to make sure her innocence is not prematurely lost by letting her know a single, solitary detail of what I do day in and day out..._that_ is the little girl you really, _really_ felt needed to know that you blew up an entire house Friday and...I mean, Steven, here's the big _and_ part coming up..._and_ you had to _smile_ while you were telling her this."

Steve flicked his eyes across the suddenly too-small space between them again. "Bedtime story?" he tried, though he knew that sounded pitifully lame.

"B-?" Danny spluttered, shaking his head and shaking it some more and flapping his hands around and whoop, down and up, there went the seagull again.

Steve managed not to snort this time.

"Bedtime story, he says, that's great, it really is, thank you, Steven J. McGarrett, for _also_ telling my innocent little bundle of purity and goodness that is one Grace Williams, that not only did you happily blow up a house with a very big smile on your face the whole time, but that her _father_ was the one who made the suggestion _which_, I would like to make a point here, my friend, is hardly accurate."

Now it was Steve's turn to splutter. "Hardly accurate? Are you _serious_?"

"No, Steve. I am not serious. I am simply blowing smoke up your ass because I like to hear myself talk."

"Well, at least you finally admitted it," Steve muttered. _Oh, shit, that was my inside voice gone outside, wasn't it?_

Danny's jaw dropped, and if it hadn't looked so comical that Steve wanted to bust a nut laughing right then and there, he might've been just a bit worried at the way his partner ever-so-slowly turned his head until it allowed his eyes to shoot him a glare that, truth be told, might have taken Superman himself down.

"Are you telling me," Danny said, in a very uncharacteristically quiet and calm voice, "that you think I go off on tangents simply to hear myself talk, rather than to actually talk some sense into you?"

This time Steve couldn't help biting his lip. Yeah, that hadn't been the brightest thing to let slip, especially not right now when Danny was already accusing him of deflowering Grace's purity and innocence where her father's job was concerned. "No," he said with a lot more confidence than he felt. "I just meant...look, Danny, I wasn't trying to, you know, mess with your daughter's preconceived notions of her father, okay?"

"Just with her father."

Okay, Steve could go with that. "Yes."

"Yes, he says."

Steve nodded. "Yes."

"You know what this means, don't you?"

Looking across at his partner's face in profile did nothing to help him understand where his head was at right now, and so he just quietly said, "No, but I'm sure you'll tell me."

"I will, at that," Danny said. "If you're telling me that I'm just talking to hear myself talk, and that tells me right there that you're no longer listening to a single word I say, that, my friend, and trust me on this because been there, done that, bought the ever-lovin' tee shirt...that means that you and I are going to be divorced within a month."

_Now would not be the time to bring up the fact that we're not married. That we're nothing more than 5-0 partners. Right?_

That thought firmly in place, Steve deflected down to the next best thing. "Danny, I haven't listened to what you've said since the day I met you."

"Oh," Danny said, relaxing back into the seat and giving a half-hearted flap of his hand in Steve's general direction. He closed his eyes and sighed happily. "Well, in that case, I'm not even on your radar yet, which means we haven't even gotten to the part where we've met, so we're good for at least another three years."

Steve shot him another glance and recognized peace on his partner's face at last. He couldn't help but grin as they neared headquarters. "Good to know, Danno," he said, slotting the Camaro into its reserved parking spot. "Good to know."


	2. The Email

**Cargument 2: The Email**

"I'm telling you, Steven, there was _no such email_ in my Inbox. Not this morning, not _any_ other morning."

"And _I'm_ telling you that I sent it to the whole team."

"Yeah, sure," Danny said, waving his hand once.

Steve frowned. Waving it only once was bad in Danny hand-speak. "You think I only sent it to Kono and Chin? Why would I _not_ send you something as important as that? What, you think I'm ex_clu_ding you?"

Danny pulled a couple faces, half-shook his head and flapped his hand just once again. "Whatever. Fact is, I did _not_ get it."

"Why don't you check again."

Turning to face him, half his body twisting in Steve's general direction as well, Danny squinted through the eternal sunlight beating down through the windshield and seemed to consider his partner for a moment. "Check again. I have told you there was _no such email_ and you want me to check again."

"Well, yeah, that's why we have Smart Phones, Danny, just check again. I did _not_ exclude you."

A melodramatic sigh was accompanied by Danny lifting his hips off the seat so he could unceremoniously _yank_ his iPhone from his left pants pocket and then thump his butt back down. "All right, fine," he huffed, sliding the bar to get to the desktop. "Fine, we'll just see about that email, then."

Steve nodded, a smug look on his face. He just _knew_ Danny hadn't checked his email, there was no way, because he was one hundred and fifty percent certain he'd sent it to the entirety of Five-O. His eyes stayed on the road, but he was tense with anticipation.

"Hey, uh, Steve?"

He glanced sidelong at his _haole_ partner. "What?"

"What, exactly, was the email about?"

"It was about the...you _know_ what it was about or we wouldn't be having this arg-" he cut himself off at the look on Danny's face. "We wouldn't be having this dis_cus_sion if you didn't know what it was about. I _told_ you, it was just an invitation for us all to barbecue at my place tonight."

"Did you, uh...happen to mention anything about what we'd be having at this barbecue, perchance?"

"Did I...I don't know, I _may_ have said there'd be beer or something. Why?"

"Pull over."

"_What_?"

"Pull over. Stop the car. Pull _over_!"

"All right, all _right_! Geez, what-?" Steve managed to get them onto the shoulder of the two-lane road and put the car in park. Now he turned as much as he could to face Danny. "What."

"I will preface this by saying it's completely your fault that I didn't get the email. In my inbox. This morning."

"How is that _my_ fault? And anyway, if you didn't get it, how can you even attach _blame_ to that?"

"Because...Steven..." Danny waved the iPhone, well, waved his hand with the iPhone _in_ it...around. "Because you _did_ send the email, and _this_, my friend, is where it went." He thrust the iPhone screen right in front of Steve's face.

And the look that came over his former Navy SEAL, pumped-on-adrenaline, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later-kind-of-a-guy partner Steven J. McGarrett's face, made Danny chuckle. And then he pulled his iPhone back and started to laugh right out loud.

"Only you," Danny finally said, as Steve turned back to face the front of the car, jaw trying to pull itself away from the rest of his face as he struggled to keep it square, "only _you_, you _insane_ man, would send an email like this. An email that would go into my spam folder because...and why, Steven? Why did the email go into my spam folder?"

"I don't know," Steve growled, still trying in vain to keep a straight face.

"_Maybe_, and just call this an educated guess because of my exquisite puzzle-solving skills, here, but maybe your little email went into my _spam_ folder because you called your little only-in-freaking-Hawaii-would-this-ever-happen-get-together invitation-" With that, Danny burst out laughing again, the iPhone slipping from his hand to the floor as he doubled over in mirth.

Steve's right hand reached across and down, snatching the damn iPhone off the floor. He looked at the screen, saw the email and very quickly opened it, then deleted it. The title mocked him as the email slithered down toward the little trash can icon.

He knew that never in a hundred million years would he live down what would come to be known in Five-O Lore as the "Spam on the Beach!" invitation.


	3. Carguments

**Cargument 3: Carguments**

"I'm sorry."

Danny's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, no small feat in and of itself, as he turned an incredulous, shocked and somehow also fond look at his partner, whose eyes were (as is proper, Danny noted) steady on the road in front of them.

"I'm...I'm sorry, did you just...apologize to me?"

Steve shot him a look. "I believe that's generally what those two words mean, Danny, yes."

"Well," Danny replied, straightening in his seat, smoothing down his tie and running a hand over his hair simultaneously.

Brow puckered, Steve looked across at him again, then back to the road for a few seconds and then glanced back at Danny. "Well? That's what you're going with?"

"Well, excuse me for being just a little taken aback, here," Danny replied, hands punctuating every other syllable. "I mean, I thought you never listened to me."

"Who says I never listen to you?"

"The fact, my friend, that you continue to disregard everything I tell you about following procedure, and waiting for backup, and all these..._things_..." And here his hands moved even more wildly. "...that we talk about time and time and time again that devolve into arguments."

"Carguments," Steve said quickly, keeping his eyes on the road. Then he just couldn't help himself and looked across the space between them. Danny looked confused. "You know," Steve said, gesturing between himself and his partner, but suddenly feeling a lot less sure of himself. "Carguments. That's what this is."

"That's what this is," Danny repeated, nodding his head but pursing his lips as he looked out the passenger window, then out the windshield and finally dragged his eyes back to Steve. "You've coined a term for this," he said, hand flapping between them in an echo of Steve's earlier move.

"Yeah," Steve confirmed, cutting his eye at him.

"Okay," Danny said. "That's really not altogether that bad a word."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

There were several seconds of silence as Steve made a (surprisingly) non-bone-jarring right turn. "And your apology is accepted, by the way."

Steve's surprise clearly showed on his face. "Really? Not 'acceptance is pending' but acceptance right now?"

"No, no, no," Danny said, sounding exasperated, and there went his hands again. "That was the acceptance for the first time you got me shot."

"The f—Danny, that was over three years ago!" Danny waved him off with a gesture that said _Whatever_. "And besides, I thought you already accepted that one."

"Yeah, well, every subsequent time you get me shot, it makes previous apology acceptances null and void, Steven. So since you're up to an even..." Danny made a big show of counting his fingertips multiple times on both hands. "...thirty-two, I figure it's time to go back and start taking acceptances away."

"You can't take acceptances away!" Steve argued, clearly warming to this particular subject matter.

"When I'm the one who accepted it, I absolutely can," Danny said confidently. "Rules of the street."

"We're not—this isn't street rules, Danny, this is Five-O rules!"

"You should get a bumper sticker made that says that," Danny replied thoughtfully.

"Stop getting off topic. You are _not_ allowed to revoke apology acceptance. Period. Especially when you just make up new rules like that when it suits you."

"Well, maybe what I'm trying to do here is point out to you that if you didn't get me _shot_ so many times, then you would never have found _out_ about this rule, because even _I_ thought you'd have enough common decency to stop after, say, maybe the _twentieth time_!"

"I didn't get you shot," Steve said sullenly, sinking down a little further in the driver's seat as he made another right turn.

"Yeah," Danny said. "You did. And you know how I came to that conclusion?"

Steve grimaced, quite sure he'd find out even if he said no. So he just kept his mouth shut and gestured for Danny to _go ahead, get the rant over with_.

"I will tell you how precisely I came to that conclusion that this time you _did_ get me shot, possibly more than all the other times put together. Because you, who after what you so accurately estimated as three years, you who continue to refuse to operate like anything other than Hawaii is your own personal Afghanistan, or I'm sorry, _The 'stan_," he said, literally making air quotes in front of his own face, "you decided once again that I was plenty of backup for you, rather than waiting ten minutes for HPD to get there, and then when you're standing in the middle of the damn dock with hundreds of boats all around you from which any idiot with a shotgun could hit you, you just stand there and look back at me like you want to say 'I told you so,' and then-"

Danny slammed his hand down on the dashboard, making Steve jump.

"And then," Danny continued, struggling to keep his voice even, "I see this glint out of the corner of my eye and I see this Samoan _asshole_ with that gun leveled straight ahead and quick line of sight tells me you, Steve, are going _down_."

"And you thought the only reasonable thing for you to do was run at me like a bat out of hell, knock me down so hard you gave me a concussion, and take a bullet for me."

Danny gritted his teeth, right hand automatically coming up to clutch his upper left arm. "I did not run at you like a bat out of hell."

"Maybe, maybe not," Steve said, voice suddenly quiet as he pulled the car over against a curb in what seemed to be a nice, quiet neighborhood. "But you did save my life."

Danny twisted in his seat, thankful it was yet again just another flesh wound, even though said flesh wound under all its cream and gauze still burned like hell. "So how come you apologized to me instead of thanking me and started this whole..._car_gument...to begin with?"

Steve shrugged in what he thought was a nonchalant manner.

Narrowing his eyes, Danny blew out a breath. "If I didn't know better, I would say you do that shit on purpose."

Steve swung the driver's side door open and leaned his elbows on the Camaro's roof, waiting until Danny was out of the passenger side before tossing the keys across to him. He had a big grin on his face and Danny shook his head, closing the door and coming around the front of the car.

"Seriously, Steve?"

The grin didn't leave Steve's face. "We're not allowed to have carguments outside the car," he said, as though reminding a child that the first letter of the alphabet was A.

Danny tried, but failed, to hold his smile in. "Come on, let's go see what our suspect has to say for himself."

Steve nodded, all business, and headed for the front walk of a decent-looking house side-by-side with his partner. They got to the door and Danny rang the doorbell before looking up at his partner. "Accepted."

When they heard the back door slam open, and as Steve made to jump over the front porch railing to give chase, Danny could've sworn his partner was wearing the biggest shit-eating grin he'd ever seen.


	4. Pizza

**Cargument 4: Pizza**

"Are you going to explain this to me?" Danny asked, waving his iPhone in the space separating himself from Steve, the driver of the car they were currently going somewhere in. The car that belonged _not_ to the driver, of course, but to the perpetual passenger. Of his own car.

"Explain what?" And oh, how much did Danny hate that pretend look of innocence that his own daughter could've done better at in her sleep?

"This," Danny said, leaning over and putting the screen of the phone directly in front of Steve's eyes.

"I can't see the road, Danny." Deadpan. Actually, Steve was really good at deadpan.

Danny jerked the phone back. "The..." He made a big show of scrolling up...and up...and up...and up some more until he reached 7:30am on that very day. "...forty-four text messages I have received from you today, that's what."

Steve opened his mouth and then seemed to reconsider, snapping it shut again. He looked sidelong at his partner, at the patiently expectant look on his face. "Well," he finally said, eyes moving slowly back to the road ahead of them, "It's 6:30 at night."

Danny sighed, rubbing his forehead with a thumb and forefinger. "Yes, I know that, Steven. And you know how I know that? Because right here, above the forty-four text messages you sent me, you see this thin little black bar up here with the little tiny white letters and numbers that _thank_fully I can still see in spite of my ever-advancing years, is today's date and will you look at that, there's the time, too. Right here," Danny said, jabbing his index finger at the time display. "Above all these text messages." He raised an eyebrow in Steve's direction. "All forty-four of them."

Steve stayed silent, hoping for more from Danny so he didn't have to say anything. He wasn't disappointed.

"So somewhere inside that 'my entire life is classified' brain of yours, McGarrett, I am really, really hoping that you telling me the time of day has something to do with my original question to you." When Steve just glanced at him before stopping at a red light, Danny sighed. "You miss me? Is that what this is about?" He shook the phone in reference.

He saw his out. "Yes, Danno," he nodded, probably a little too vigorously if the small headache it suddenly caused at the base of his skull was any indication, "you caught me, okay? I missed you. And," Steve added, seizing on the opening, "I must admit to being a little hurt that I didn't even get _one_ text message back from _you_."

"Why are you turning this back on me?" Danny asked incredulously. "For God's sake, Steve, I was on a stakeout with Officer Amoy over at Janek's, you know that."

"And that kept you from sending me just one text?"

"Wow, you really _did_ miss me."

"Yeah."

Danny didn't quite feel the conversation was over because, thank you very much, he was quite a good detective, at that. And right now his detective senses were tingling and he just leaned up against the car door as Steve took a right and then a left, and before he knew it his Camaro that he rarely drove anymore was slotted into its spot in front of HQ.

"Hang on, there, big guy," Danny said as Steve pulled the keys out of the ignition and went for the door handle. Steve froze, but didn't look at him. "Now, are you going to tell me, Steve, _please_, why you felt it necessary on the one day that you _insisted_ I go on that stakeout to foster positivity between Five-O and HPD, that you _insisted_ I was the _only_ team member HPD really didn't already hate for one reason or another and probably just because they still view me as a _haole_, I might add...why is it that you felt texting me forty-four times when I was not in a position where texting you back would've brought me anything but funny looks from Amoy? Hm?"

Steve deflated back into the seat. "Feed the beast," he finally said, voice so low Danny almost didn't hear him.

"Did I just hear you right? Did you just say, 'feed the beast,' Steve? Really?"

"Yes. It was Kono's idea."

"Kono? What the hell is going on? I don't even know what that means, 'feed the beast,' and why is Kono telling you to send me forty-four text messages?"

As if it had been scripted for a television show, the object of this new tangent of their discussion appeared right in front of the Camaro like she'd simply poofed herself into existence. Then, Danny saw Chin Ho standing right next to his door, smiling serenely through the window.

"Steven?"

"Mm?"

Danny couldn't tear his eyes from Chin's face. "What the hell's going on?"

Steve shoved the key back into the ignition, twisted it just enough to get power, and rolled down his window. Kono leaned in with a big grin on her face. Her eyes darted to Danny's, who'd finally dragged his eyes away from Chin to look across at her.

"So, Boss," she said, grin still firmly in place, "how'd Operation Feed the Beast go?" She jutted her chin out in Danny's direction. "He sweetened up?"

Danny watched his partner sink as low as he could in the driver's seat and suddenly his detective senses were going off like a tornado siren and he felt the hair on the back of his head stand up. Now he knew. He knew _exactly_ what was going on, and his muscles tensed.

"Feed the beast," Danny ground out through clenched teeth.

"Yes," Chin said from right next to him, and Danny wondered who the hell had rolled his window down. "To send a high-maintenance partner a text message in order to keep them sweet and avoid them getting upset."

"High maintenance? I am _not_ high maintenance."

"Oh, Danny," Kono snorted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You _so_ are."

"And," Chin added, hand on the door, "not only are you fairly new to Hawaii, but you're new to Five-O."

"It's been two months!" Danny protested, feeling his gut twist. "And you're all new to Five-O, too!"

"I'm the boss," Steve said, finally deciding it was safe to speak.

"Yeah, so we don't get to do this to him. And since we're both from Hawaii, that leaves only you, _brah_."

"Do _not_ say _brah_ to me right before you're about to do something that's going to make me hate you so_ so_ much," Danny warned.

He'd screwed up. He should've _known_ better than to take his eyes off his ninja partner, but Chin was scaring the hell out of him because who knew how the hell these damn Hawaiians hazed newcomers, anyway, and Chin was just scary enough to make the knot twist in Danny's gut even further. But still, he should _not_ have taken his eyes off Steve. That had been his biggest mistake.

Because in the next few seconds, Steve had grabbed both Danny's hands, causing his iPhone to tumble to the floor, and somehow twisted him well enough and made it across the front seat far enough that Danny's head was trapped against his chest, wrists held tightly against Danny's own hips.

And then the most inhumane thing Danny had ever personally experienced happened. A slice of pizza was shoved into his opened mouth...opened to protest, yell and otherwise curse every ancestor and future generation of the McGarrett, Kelly and Kalakaua families...and instinctively Danny bit down.

His taste buds were pitifully assaulted and he heard Steve growl into his ear, "Eat it, Danny."

Relaxing just a bit, because really, Danny knew no matter how good a cop he was he would never be able to actually get away from Steve, Danny decided to go ahead and take his medicine and get it over with. So he chewed four more times and made a big show of sounding like he was gagging as he swallowed.

"There," Kono said as Steve immediately released him and got out of the car. "That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

Chin smiled and opened the door for Danny, who straightened his tie, picked his phone back up off the floor and slid it into his left pants pocket as he hauled himself out of the Camaro. He reached up automatically to catch the keys Steve sent sailing his way across the roof and noticed the slice of pizza on a paper plate now sitting on that same roof.

He stole a glance toward the front of the building, where Steve, Kono and Chin were high-fiving and slapping each others' backs and laughing hysterically at their successful hazing of one Detective Williams as they entered.

Danny looked at the slice of pizza again, then grabbed it, folded it in half with his right hand and crumpled the paper plate up in his left hand before tossing it through the window into the back seat of his car. Quickly he stuffed as big a bite of the pizza into his mouth as he could, chewed a bit, then shoved another bite in.

Hey, he was hungry.

And...maybe...just _maybe_...kind of close to admitting that pineapple on pizza really wasn't altogether_ that_ bad...


	5. You Passed

**Cargument 5: You Passed**

"Why the hell do you always have to be such an indecipherable antheral?"

Steve almost didn't feel like that should be dignified with a response since he didn't even understand the last word in the sentence, but he never could resist the pull of an oncoming Danny Storm. "Because I _am_ an indecipherable antheral?"

"Actually, that's only half correct, my friend. Indecipherable, you are. But unless you're some sort of _Little Shop of Horrors_ throwback, an antheral, not so much."

All right, that was it. Steve had had it. And he slammed the butt of his hand against the Camaro's steering wheel to prove just how much he'd had it. Since he still hadn't quite landed on what the hell antheral had to do with an admittedly sort of funny horror movie, that made his 'had it' all the more had.

"What?" Danny asked after the loud smack. "You trying to break my car? Oh, no, wait...you do that on an hourly basis on a _good_ day."

"What's so wrong with being indecipherable?"

"Say what?"

Ah, now that was new.

"Inscrutable," Steve continued, feeling a buildup sliding into place. "Mysterious. Cryptic. Incomprehensible."

"Okay," Danny said, jabbing a finger in the air, "now that one right there I'll have to agree with. And what's wrong with it, he asks, what's wrong with it." Danny's hands are going a mile a minute and Steve relaxes into the familiarity of it.

"What's _wrong_ with it," and that's punctuated by the upper chop-slice, "is that because your face is made of better stone than the statue of David, because your eyes are the only things that ever give you away, I am stuck looking at your eyes _constantly_ and that, McGarrett, is a fucking annoyance when either a)," and Steve could see the right parentheses around that one because Danny's cupped hand looked suspiciously like one, "you are wearing dark sunglasses which I cannot see through, or b)," and there was another hand parentheses, "trying to read you by looking at your eyes is nigh impossible even in the most sedate of firefights."

Steve felt Danny's eyes on him and looked his way. "What?"

"I was waiting for you to defend yourself against my irrefutable logic."

"I don't even know what I'm meant to be defending myself against. Who says you've got to read anything about me? I was trained _not_ to give people that advantage."

He saw Danny's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. That made Steve frown. Was he going soft already? He'd heard about it happening, but never believed it would happen to him.

"You seriously think you're inscrutable where the eyes are concerned," Danny finally said. "I find that almost as adorable as Grace still letting me pretend she believes I'm Santa Claus."

"Once I untangle the participles to find the few meaningful words hiding under your alphabet soup, I'll come up with a witty reply."

Danny laughed out loud. "You've been hanging around me way too long for your own good."

_And don't I know it_, Steve groused within the privacy of his own thoughts.

"That was _not_ nice, McGarrett. That really and truly was not nice."

Steve turned big, wide eyes at his partner, but his face...damn, was he learning something from Steve? He couldn't read Danny's face at all, and that _had_ to be a first. "What wasn't nice?"

"I _told_ you," Danny said, tossing his hands up in the air as if they held words that would simply tumble down into the right order and make sense, "your _eyes_. You were thinking, and correct me if I'm wrong, please do, something along the lines of 'don't I know it.'"

Steve openly gaped at him now. That was just...that was...scary.

"Oh, don't worry, it's not like I'm actually psychic or anything. Well, not where anyone else is concerned anyway."

Narrowing his eyes, Steve set his jaw and tightened his lips into a thin line. "Bullshit. Otherwise you'd already know about all my covert ops rather than asking me about them."

"No," Danny said, averting his eyes and shaking his head sadly. "You just don't get it at all, do you?"

"Get what, Danny?" Steve's brows knitted when his partner didn't answer. "The hell, man?" Yes, Steve was now moving on to WTF Face. Or maybe in this case WTH Face.

"Just because I ask you about your covert ops doesn't mean I don't already know about them," Danny said quietly. "You ever think maybe, just maybe...I ask to test the level of trust between us?"

Steve abruptly pulled off the road, the right wheels on grass, the left ones on sand next to the asphalt. He undid his seat belt, turned in his seat and faced his partner while shaking his head. "Dammit, Danny, this isn't a matter of trust, it's a matter of me being sworn to secrecy. If we were married fifty years, I wouldn't be able to reveal any of it to you on my _death_bed! It has nothing to _do_ with how much I do or don't trust you!"

Danny's countenance remained placid throughout what had to have been the most words Steve McGarrett had ever spoken at one time anywhere ever, like in the history of the entire universe since the Big Bang. He cocked his head slightly. The corners of his eyes crinkled and the corners of his mouth fought to keep themselves from turning up.

"Congratulations, Sailor. You passed," was all Danny said.

Steve's eyes, regardless of whatever else they might be saying, were now, Steve was certain, quite expressively matching the higher level WTF Face he was sporting. "_What_ did you just say?" he whispered, hands clenching and unclenching.

"Sorry, Steve, can't tell you anything more than that."

And no, Danny was absolutely _not_ enjoying this _way_ too much and maybe, just maybe...definitely...not getting in the only little piece of payback he'd ever be able to on this subject and it certainly wasn't because sometimes McGarrett deserved to know what it felt like not to be him.

Steve went back to facing forward. He put the Camaro in gear and pulled back out onto the road. "I can't believe they used you to test me," he ground out furiously.

Danny just smiled, carefully keeping his face as inscrutable as McGarrett ever could. "I promise, I won't tell them about your eyes. I'm the only one who can read them right anyway."

Fists gripping the wheel so tight even he had some mild concern it would break, Steve turned and looked full-on at his partner, growling, "Better not," as soon as Danny returned his gaze.

He knew Danny understood perfectly everything he couldn't say.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Based on the idea that with all Steve has done in Naval Intelligence and the SEALS...with all the classified things he can't tell another living soul...perhaps someone in that nebulous 'leadership' Steve is beholden to might be a little curious as to how well he's really doing in keeping mum now that he's gone civilian (for the most part). It was just a teeny little nuance I wanted to explore.


	6. Wardrobe

**Cargument 6: Wardrobe**

"May I just ask...and yes, I'm going to want an answer here, so you _are_ going to be allowed to speak once I ask the question, you got that?"

"Was that the question?"

"One of these days, I'm going to shoot you myself. No, that was _not_ the question. It was _a_ question, but it was not _the_ question, okay?"

"You keep asking me questions. Which one is _the_ question?"

"In_fur_iating...McGarrett. All right, here is _the_ question. _The_ question is: when, exactly, did I give you permission to add things to my wardrobe?"

"Add things?"

"Evidence, I have evidence that you're adding things to my wardrobe, practically a closet full of evidence. I'm good with that, you know, because I generally go about gathering it according to _procedure_...little-used word in the SEAL dictionary, I know-"

"We have procedures."

"Oh, sure, I'm absolutely _certain_ you have procedures in the SEALs. Procedures which consist of things like, oh, I don't know, doing whatever it takes to accomplish your objective."

"Danny! You've been reading up on this!"

"Do _not_ sound so fucking happy, Steven. I will have you know that I am quite well-versed in what information I could get out of my sources about SEALs-"

"Sources?"

"Sources, yes. I may not be Hawaiian, but I have sources. And those sources have told me exactly why you act the way you do, but the thing I haven't quite figured out is this: you won't even stop and _listen_ to me when I tell you no, you cannot do things that way, you have to do things the _cop_ way now because you're not in a goddamn desert or jungle in the middle of Bumfuck, Earth, you're in a populated...or mostly populated...state of the good old U, S of A. And that means, Steven, that you _cannot_ just go off half-cocked—do not snort, you immature bastard. You do not go off half-cocked whenever, however and wherever you feel like it with only one guy as your back-up and expect me to be okay with that _simultaneous_ with you buying me short-sleeved polos and black tee shirts like you want to make me into some sort of blond Mini-Me Half-Pint Rambo!"

"Half-Pint?"

"Stop laughing."

"You gave me permission."

"Okay, what...where did you...what are we talking about again?"

"You asked me when, exactly, did you give me permission to add things to your wardrobe."

"You were actually listening."

"I _always_ listen, Danno."

"Really. Then pray tell, how in all the listening to my words that you say you do, did you come up with the fact that I gave you permission to add things like polo shirts, cargo shorts and fucking tight-ass swim trunks to my wardrobe? And wipe that smirk off your face. It is _not_ appealing."

"Yes, it is. And to answer your question now, hours after you originally asked it, I might add, you gave me permission when you borrowed a black polo shirt from me that day after yours got royally fucked by shrapnel."

"How was me not wanting to walk around your place talking to HPD's finest in no shirt after someone threw a grenade in your window, me giving you permission to try to permanently alter my wardrobe?"

"Remember I asked you if you liked the shirt?"

"Yes, I remember. I still don't see what-"

"And remember how you said yes, it was comfortable, and thanked me for letting you borrow it?"

"Yes, because I have _manners_, Steven, and-"

"And remember how you said you'd return it washed and folded the next day?"

"Christ, what do you have, an eidetic memory? What the-"

"Actually, I do, Danny. So you see, I remember every single thing you've ever said. Every word, like it was written down and I could just read it off the page. I also remember every look you get and what accompanied those looks, whether it was something you said or I said, something that happened on a case, talking to your daughter or Rachel on the phone. I remember _everything_."

"Oh. And stop smirking. I told you about your smirking already."

"That's also why I remember very clearly precisely which shirt you pulled out of my dresser that day. And how I know with absolute certainty that you never actually returned it."

"Well, I just—Christ, if you were so married to the damn shirt, I would've...I was going to-"

"Keep the shirt, Danno. I just figured if you liked it so much, maybe you would like to have some that were yours and not some hand-me-down from me."

"You knew I kept your shirt and never said a thing."

"Yep. And nope."

"You are a strange, strange man. And I do not like the fact that you remember every word of what I say."

"Why not?"

"Because that means you can repeat my rants back to me word for word, and do _not_ think for a minute that I don't know you would do _precisely_ that just to torture me if I pissed you off."

"I wouldn't do that. I'll just keep getting you shirts."

"And shorts?"

"And swim trunks."

"You buy me a Speedo and I _will_ shoot you."

"While wearing it?"

"You. Are. A. Pervert."

"Yeah. Thanks, bro."

"You're welcome. I think."

"Oh, Danny?"

"What?"

"You can stop wearing those ties, too, any day now. They don't look good with polos."

"Fuck you."

"I knew you'd like it here eventually."

"Only if I get to keep your shirt."

"I already told you that you can."

"That was too easy."

"It took two years, Danno. I fail to see how that's considered 'easy.'"

"Two years of more ups and downs than they have on a Six Flags roller coaster."

"We're here. Time to change."

"Change?"

"Yeah. We're going into HQ. Don't you want to put the tie and button-down on that I saw you throw in the back seat? You know, professional appearance of a cop and all that?"

"Actually, I think I'd more like to see the looks on Chin's and Kono's faces when I walk in dressed like-"

"Me?"

"You're creeping me out."

"I think it's cute."

"Did you just call me _cute_?"

"No."

"I take it back. I don't want your shirt."

"Yes, you do."

"I hate you _so_ much."

"I know. Feeling's mutual. Now, come on, let's go scare the shit out of our kids with your new look."

"Our _kids_?"

"Our kids."

"Which one of us is the mother? Wait, do _not_ answer that. You know, I fill this polo out better than you ever did."

"You think?"

"I _know_."

"Are we ever going to get out of the car?"

"As soon as you let go of my arm?"

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"You okay, babe? Don't like the shirt?"

"Love the shirt. Short sleeves, open buttons, no tie. Very Hawaiian."

"Then why are we still sitting here?"

"I'm just savoring the moment. I was the first one to get you into non-_haole_ cop clothes, and I feel like I've accomplished the painting of the Sistine chapel. So I'm savoring."

"I'll give you two minutes to keep savoring, and then I'm going to go let Chin and Kono savor. What, do _not_ get that look on your face."

"I don't have a look."

"Yeah, Steve, you do. And for the first time ever, I gotta say I actually _like_ that one."


	7. Without a Word

**Cargument 7: Without A Word**

Steve couldn't take the silence. So he did the only thing he could to fill it since Danny had obviously abdicated that role for the moment: he turned the radio on.

_Now, now, let's stop playin' these games  
>If we gonna make it work, let's just act our age (i)<em>

Unsure what precise look was on his face over the timeliness of those particular words being sung at the precise moment he'd pressed the radio's ON button, Steve tried to act nonchalant. He could feel Danny's scowl like it was a physical hand reaching out and slapping him across the front seat. Instead of a real slap, though, Danny's finger reached out and hit the Preset 1 button.

_Ease your mind, this moment will pass if you just  
>Leave it alone, leave it alone every time (ii)<em>

Steve's eyebrow arched. He looked across at his partner, whose face showed he was pissed, but who turned to look out the passenger window quickly enough that Steve couldn't tell much more than that. Plus with this kind of cut glass atmosphere inside the Camaro, he didn't need the additional cacophony of this particular kind of music grating on his nerves, too. So he hit Preset 2.

_All I ever get is attitude  
>Constant never ending bad mood<br>From you, baby  
>What's goin' on? (<em>_iii)_

Steve froze. Well. That wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for. Something harmless like Queen, maybe. Or, even better, some sort of Bon Jovi or Bruce Springsteen non-stop set just to make Danny's mood lighten. But no. What did Steve get? He resisted the urge to facepalm, but was about two nanoseconds from jabbing the radio off when Danny's hand snaked out and hit Preset 3.

_Shot through the heart  
>And you're to blame<br>Darlin', you give love a bad name (__iv)_

Okay, that was just wrong, on so many levels, Steve knew it. First, it was Bon Jovi. Second, how was Steve supposed to have known two sixteen year-old kids were armed to the teeth with the kinds of weapons Kamekona kept hidden for his (_talk about don't ask, don't tell_) private use? Besides, the lyrics were overblowing things, because the only one who got shot was the punk who'd aimed at Steve, and it'd been _Danny_ who'd shot _him_.

And third, these were random radio stations playing random lines of random songs that couldn't possibly have any meaning to the situation at hand. Logically, Steve knew this. It was true.

So there you had it. Except…

Steve glanced over, and found Danny was now looking out the windshield, at least, instead of the passenger window. Progress. And…a twitch? A twitch. Yes, Danny's lips were twitching.

So Steve didn't change the station. He let Bon Jovi finish just because Danny liked them, and his reward was to see Danny's muscles relax just a fraction. Give love a bad name. Really? Steve allowed himself a quiet sigh.

He wasn't prepared for it when Danny hit Preset 4.

_This isn't me,  
>This isn't you,<br>But it's just everything we do (__v)_

Steve frowned. This was getting silly. He was having a conversation with his partner using arbitrary shit on the radio. This was stooping to a whole new level of bizarre really fast. Then again, Steve thought, it was better than actually arguing with all the tone, inflection, and hand-waving that accompanied what he and Danny had somehow turned into an Olympic sport.

So if this thought process was to be followed, he reasoned, it meant Danny wasn't actually mad at _him_ after all. That made Steve feel better, and he started thinking maybe he understood why Danny was so silent and so angry. Wondering if his luck would hold (_I will put a bullet in that radio if it starts playing 'Big Girls Don't Cry'_), Steve bravely hit Preset 5.

_Every time that we have an argument,  
>Always tryin' to win, just getting loud again<br>But you ain't really mad at me (__vi)_

Okay, time to freeze again. Prepare for the onslaught. No use reminding Danny of his rather loud and obnoxious habit of starting fights just for fighting. Hell, they didn't even get makeup sex, so Steve rarely saw the point other than Danny just blowing off a head of steam. But really, it was such a one-sided thing because Steve didn't very often bite back, so what did he actually get out of all those blustering, long-winded, maddening, sometimes infuriating, amusing, mood-boosting, uniquely Williams…

…wait a sec. How'd his stream of consciousness go from thinking of Danny's rants as terrible things, to thinking of them as…God forbid…_good_ things?

Maybe Danny was right. Maybe Steve _did_ need a therapist or three.

Danny slammed his thumb into the last preset button, number 6, and Steve waited.

_Sometimes it hurts  
>So much to lose the one you love<br>Sometimes it hurts  
>So much to lose the one you love (<em>_vii)_

Steve whipped his head around to look at Danny. Danny met his gaze, but Steve couldn't read anything in his partner's face. Steve quickly moved his eyes back to the road. For a moment his brain felt fried, but then slowly he reminded himself it was just random radio songs. That was all.

But Steve _had_ almost been killed today. If Danny hadn't shot that stupid punk with the black market Sig pointed directly at Steve's head, the doped-up kid would've pulled the trigger. And Steve wouldn't be here right now driving and jabbing at radio buttons, having a silent argument…no…conversation…with his partner.

Maybe Steve's actions _had_ caused his life to be in danger this time. Or maybe more than just this time. Maybe Danny really _was_ right, _had_ been right all along. He chanced a look across the car. Danny's jaw was set, daring McGarrett to say one goddamn word about any of this at all, whatsoever, because even under duress, his body language was screaming, he would never, _ever_ admit to what Steve was sure was going on.

So Steve stopped at the red light that meant they were almost to Danny's apartment, and hit Seek on the radio.

_I'm sorry, yes, I am, for everything that I've done  
>How can I do this right, without you in my life (<em>_viii)_

_Ohhh, the inhumanity_, Steve thought as a blush crept up his neck. He was fairly certain even through his tan that he was pretty red right about now. He pulled into the parking lot of Danny's building and, simply because he didn't want to make himself die of embarrassment as the song continued with "_Even though I say I love you I've gotta make a change in my life, baby,_" Steve cut the engine.

They sat there in deafening silence. Steve fidgeted. Danny was surprisingly still. Steve wanted to run. He decided he'd do just that. He got out of the car, surprised when Danny followed suit. When Danny's hair appeared over the rooftop of the Camaro, Steve tossed him the keys. He enjoyed the surprised look on his partner's face for a moment, then gave him a little wave and what he hoped was an apologetic smile, turned and began running along the sidewalk toward home.

He needed to clear his head. He needed the time to think. He needed the burn of the pounding his muscles were going to take running in work boots on concrete all the way out to where he lived. Because he and Danny hadn't said a _word_ on the way back from the crime scene, and Danny deserved his own car in his own parking lot for a change, rather than Steve taking it and leaving his partner stranded for the night just because he liked it.

Hell, maybe Steve needed to buy his _own_ Camaro. Nah. Wouldn't be as much fun. Because it wouldn't be _Danny's_.

Steve shook his head. Civilian life was making him lose his marbles. That had to be it. He wasn't going to think about the radio cargument any more. Not one single second more.

And just to prove to Danny that he'd meant what he hadn't even meant to say when that last song came on…okay, now Steve's brain was just on the hamster wheel…he'd ask Danny for the number of those therapists first thing Monday morning.

Then Danny would be happy, and he would pontificate (_I know big words too, you know_) loud and long about how he could not believe Steve was actually seeing the light and _listening_ to him at last. And maybe Steve's new therapist (recommended by Danny) would help him figure out how and when he'd gone from hating the verbose nature of his partner to looking forward to and…he groaned…even _provoking_ his rants.

When did Steve's life become this fucked up, he wondered.

Well, it'd all be okay. Danny had Grace this weekend, and that would make him happy as happy could be. And if he swung by Monday morning to pick Steve up and let's face it, that would probably still happen no matter what, then Steve would equally happily slide into the driver's seat because nowadays Danny just didn't even bother bitching about it. And when was it that Steve began realizing he'd been missing that particular argument, anyway? Another one for the therapist.

Yes, things would be back to normal Monday morning on the drive in to work. Steve was confident of this.

So long as nobody turned on the radio…

* * *

><p>(i) "What's Wrong" – Jennifer Hudson<p>

(ii) "Leave It Alone" – Disturbed

(iii) "What Did I Do to Your Heart" – Jonas Brothers

(iv) "You Give Love a Bad Name" – Bon Jovi

(v) "Open Your Eyes" – Sum 41

(vi) "Do We Have To" – Musiq Soulchild

(vii) "Sometimes It Hurts" – Stabbing Westward

(viii) "I'm Sorry" - Tyrese


	8. Unfinished Sentences

**Cargument 8: Unfinished Sentences**

"Do _not_—"

"I wasn't _going_ to—"

"I saw that look—"

"I did not have a _look_—"

"Yes, you did and I saw it right there—"

"If I have a look, you have a tone that—"

"I have no such thing and—"

"I _know_ you, so don't you—"

"Yeah, and I know _you_, so don't _you_—"

"Well, what the hell are you going to bitch at me for this—"

"I do not _bitch_, I tactfully remind you—"

"Oh, _tactfully_ is how he thinks he reminds—"

"He, who the fuck are you talking to calling me 'he' when—"

"And if you do not stop talking right fucking _now_, I'm going to—"

"Oh, really, what, try your ninja moves on me, because let me tell you—"

"I am _tired_ of you telling me—"

"What, how to follow procedures that were put in place for a—"

"If you say 'reason' I am going to kick you out of the car _while_ it's moving, and don't think—"

"You wouldn't _dare_, it's my freaking _car_, you Nean—"

"You know, what, Danny, I have just about—"

"No, _you_ know what, Steven, I have al_ready_—"

"Well, why don't you just tell me what the _fuck_ I did instead of—"

"I have been _trying_ to tell you that for the past, oh, I don't know, _year_ plus how many—"

"All you do is rant and rave and throw your hands around like you expect them to come off—"

"And I can take a ninja SEAL with a punch—"

"Only because I didn't expect it and—"

"Because you're so fucking cock-sure of your classified skills, that—"

"Because who expects some fucking mainland cop who's about as tall as—"

"I swear to fucking _God_, if you finish that sentence I will shoot you in the goddamn—"

"Well, make it hurt, because that's the quickest way to—"

"Oh, I'll make it hurt so good you'll never be able to get shot again without thinking of—"

"Wait, you think I _like_ getting shot, are you out of your fucking—"

"You love pain, and you love _inflicting_ pain and you really love inflicting _me_ with—"

"I am not a sadist or a masochist, Danny, give me a goddamn—"

"Well, you could've fucking fooled me, manhandling me through the—"

"I did not manhandle you, I fucking carried you because you wouldn't shut up long enough—"

"Oh, that's a much better line to put on a report, Steven, my _boss_ decided to pick me up like a—"

"And you know damn well you would've been _killed_ if I hadn't got you out of—"

"I _know_ that I was taking care of myself for _years_ without your explosions and your—"

"And you just hate being my partner so _much_ that you didn't bite when HPD offered—"

"How the _fuck_ do you even _know_ about—"

"Because I'm your _boss_, Danny, it's my goddamn _job_ to—"

"Put me in an early grave or no, wait, drive me to the loony bin or better yet, why don't I just—"

"Shut the fuck up?"

Eyes meet eyes.

The Camaro's engine cuts in front of the McGarrett house.

Two heaving, panting men exit the car and walk up to the front door.

The front door is unlocked. The alarm is turned off.

"Beer?"

"Best idea you've had all day, _Boss_."

"Yeah, except the one about saving your ass."

_*clink*_

"Yeah. That one was better."


	9. Hypothetically Speaking

**Cargument 9: Hypothetically Speaking**

"So you've seriously never met a gay married couple before?"

Steve narrows his eyes. "It's not like the Navy's teeming with them, Danny."

Danny chucks his head with a half-nod in McGarrett's direction, making a face that says he acknowledges that to be a fair statement. "You know," he says, because of course he has to say _something_, "I had a narcotics case, once, teamed up with a guy from Hoboken PD."

Steve settles in to listen. He likes hearing stories about Danny's past life on the mainland, because for all Danny gives him shit about not talking about the entirety of his Navy experiences, Mr. Jersey is surprisingly unforthcoming with facts about his own past, truth be told.

"What we didn't realize at the time was it was narc _and_ homicide. The body turned up about a week after Carver and I started hitting the streets undercover."

"Undercover?" Steve's interest is definitely piqued.

"Yep. He was the dealer, I was the junkie who did all his dirty work. I tell you, after you see the underbelly of drug trafficking, especially if you have your own kid, you're never quite the same."

A few minutes pass. Steve steals a couple glances across to the passenger seat, but Danny seems lost for a moment in some horrific memory. So Steve figures he needs to give him a gentle push. "What's the underbelly of narc got to do with gay married couples?"

Danny seems startled by the fact that Steve's even there, but recovers quickly. "Turns out it was a gay married couple heading this particular operation. Some one of their junkie dealers got wind of their, as he put it, 'unholy union,' and…yeah, in spite of the fact that he shot heroin on a daily basis, went on a crusade to defame the couple within the trafficking community."

"An amoral junkie with a moral axe to grind," Steve comments and yeah, that's just this side of weird.

"Exactly," Danny nods, waving his hand in the air. "Only when he tried to do the couple in, they got the drop on him and killed him, and then started screaming 'Gay rights!' and of course the gay community banded behind them and everyone seemed to forget they were goddamn _drug dealers_."

Steve sighs. He supposes that Danny's going to get to a point and he hopes it's soon because this particular story is depressing, at best.

"Well, anyway, Carver and I, we, uh…"

Steve's eyebrows go up when Danny blushes.

"We pretended to be lovers in order to get in good with Ayers and Lackey and it worked, but we had to keep the act up for over two months before we managed to get enough on them—" Danny turns and looks pointedly at his partner. "—with _legitimate_ warrants and search and seizure, I might add—" Steve snorts. "—to put them away for about a hundred and fifty years each."

"So you had to act gay in order to get the bad guy?"

"I did, and what's more, we actually pretended to be married, rings and all. You'd have found it amusing."

"I would've? Why?" Steve asks, truly wondering.

"Because Carver? Was a gigantic six-foot-four cop from Jamaica with an accent and dreadlocks that would've made you think he was the wrong side of the law on the first handshake."

Steve's jaw drops and then he laughs out loud at the mental image. "Jesus Christ, he was nearly a foot taller than you?"

"Yep," Danny says and he's grinning. "Lots of jokes around his precinct about that, although Ayers thought it was cute."

The men chuckle at Danny's description and Danny keeps grinning at the memory. "Thing is," Danny continues, "and this is what I sometimes think about to this day, Ayers and Lackey really and truly appeared to love each other."

Danny's voice has trailed off and he now sits silently looking out the passenger window. Steve frowns, reaches over as he brakes at a red light, and taps his forefinger on Danny's bicep. "With me, partner? We're almost there."

"Sorry," Danny says and turns to give Steve a wan smile. "Sometimes you just have cases that stick with you."

"Don't I know it," Steve mutters as the light turns green and he gently depresses the accelerator. He's quiet for a moment as he thinks about Danny and Carver, and finally curiosity gets the better of him. "So how far did you two have to go to prove your, uh…what would you call it…?"

"Gayness?" Danny supplies and then snorts out a laugh.

Steve chuckles. "Sure, for lack of a better word."

"Pretty far," Danny replies with a smirk. "You know, I'm surprised you and I haven't had to do something like that yet for Five-O."

Steve's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline as he gives his partner a look Danny's never seen before. "Say what? Why would we ever have to do that?"

"Well, I don't know, but think about right now," Danny says as Steve pulls up outside a moderately-sized mansion near some one of Oahu's beaches. "What if this couple doesn't want to cooperate with us and we want to ensure their trust so they will?"

"Hypothetically speaking?" Steve asks, and his face scrunches up in a manner than Danny can only compare to the hamster Grace had when she was five. Unfortunately, Hammy died an early death because of that pinched look, Danny's convinced.

"Yeeees," Danny says patiently. "Hypothetically speaking."

"I can't see it happening," Steve says with a shrug, and his face becomes un-hamster-like again.

"Why not?"

Steve cuts the Camaro's engine. "For one thing, these guys aren't suspects in a drug trafficking case, nor in the homicide we're currently investigating," Steve says, ticking the point off with thumb to finger. "For another thing, _they're_ the ones who called us and wanted to talk about what they'd seen, so there's every chance they're perfectly willing to tell us their story without us having to pretend we're gay for each other."

"This isn't hypothetical, McGarrett."

"And third," Steve continues undeterred, touching his thumb to his fuck-you finger which is currently saying just that right in front of Danny's nose, "you are just _not_ my type."

"You have a type where men are concerned?" Danny asks in surprise as he unbuckles his seat belt and opens the car door.

Steve grabs the back of Danny's shirt. "Get back in here."

"What? Why?" Danny asks, but pulls his leg back in, twisting his body to get Steve to let go.

"Cargument," Steve says, using his finger to swipe back and forth between the two of them. "Car only."

"Ah," Danny nods sagely, closing his door. "Answer the question."

"I have a type in _people_, Danny, not just men. I like someone who's soft and curvy, for one thing."

"Pretty much counts me out. Wait, you like guys who aren't in shape?"

Steve glares at him and Danny smirks. "For another," Steve says, and Danny thinks if Steve doesn't stop ticking points of on his fingers, he's going to break every last one of them, "I like brunettes, not blonds."

"They don't know that," Danny says, nodding up toward the mansion to his right.

"And finally," Steve says, and yes, Danny's balled his hands into fists to keep from busting McGarrett's finger, "I'm not gay."

Danny pinches the bridge of his nose. "I was speaking _hypothetically_, you goddamn straight arrow. For the sake of a _case_, of getting _bad guys_ off the streets."

Steve shakes his head and opens his mouth to reply, but is stopped by two men approaching their car. Danny rolls down his window when the dark-haired man waves through it.

"You from Five-O?" the dark-haired man asks.

Steve leans across so that he's all kinds of up in Danny's face. Danny scowls as Steve replies, "Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett," and holds his hand out, barely missing Danny's chin. "And Detective Danny Williams," Steve continues, but then glares as Danny swats to get Steve's hand out of his face.

"Get off me, you ox!"

"Danny, chill."

"Move."

"No."

"I swear to _God_, McGarrett."

Steve just flashes him a grin.

The dark-haired man grins and turns to the other one. "That's cute. Remember when we used to do that on stakeouts?"

Danny's and Steve's jaws drop. "You're cops?" Danny asks.

"Former," the dark-haired man replies. "San Francisco PD, my name's Jack Temple and my partner here is Aaron Brach."

There are handshakes all around, and more slapping from Danny as Steve refuses to back away. Glowers, stares, glares and whispered profanities soon follow and pretty soon Temple and Brach are chortling.

"Why don't you two come on in, we'd like to get this interview going."

"Sure," Danny says and shoves Steve back to his side of the car. He rolls his window up as the two former cops head up the drive to their home. "Jesus Christ, McGarrett, what the hell is it with you and my personal space? For someone who's not gay, you sure as hell have a fucked up sense of how close is too goddamn close."

Steve looks at Danny long enough that Danny fidgets and loosens his tie just a little. "Hypothetically speaking?" he says, and Danny rolls his eyes as Steve nods to the two men waiting some yards away. "Might be kind of fun."

The entire time they're getting out of the car and heading up to join their two witnesses, Danny does nothing but explain to Steve that they are never, _ever_, going to speak hypothetically or otherwise about anything like this ever again…and that if Steve touches his back one more time, he's going to pull his gun out and shoot him right on the spot.

Neither of them can figure out why the cop couple is looking at them so weirdly, and laughing so loudly.


	10. Tagged

**Cargument 10: Tagged**

"I really do _not_ think there is any more to say."

"But Danny—"

"Nope. No." Danny watched Steve try to open his mouth three more times. "No—nope—uh-uh. Not happening."

"Why is it you get to talk ad nauseum about _everything_ but I can't even defend myself? I didn't cause the goddamn explosion!" Steve yelled, tenderly touching the bruised ribs on the right side of his body.

"Because there _is_ no defense for you! At all! Like…_none_!"

Steve licked his teeth and pursed his lips and straightened the arm that was hanging onto the Camaro's steering wheel just by the wrist and sucked his lower lip in through his teeth and narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"None," Danny said, sending the air whooshing from Steve's lungs.

Suddenly Steve jerked the car to the shoulder, what little of it there was, and cut the engine. He took the keys out of the ignition and held them out to Danny. Danny, for his part, registered complete surprise for about thirty seconds before he grabbed the keys from McGarrett's hand. His face turned to a mask of stone, like he was a statue with two bright blue, glittering eyes shooting daggers at his partner.

"_Now_ you give me my keys."

Steve shrugged, and his face made it look like he could care less what happened next.

"What?" Danny asked.

"You won't let me say anything."

"_Now_ he chooses to listen to me," Danny muttered. "Fine. Speak."

"Not your dog."

"Only when you get that goofy grin on your face. Then you remind me of this black lab we had once."

Steve scowled.

"Fine, I'm sorry, okay? I am just _so_ sick and tired of having to scrape pieces of you off the goddamn concrete! Okay? _Christ_!"

"Pieces of me?" Steve asked, cocking his eye at his partner.

"Yes, _pieces_ of you," Danny said and reached deep into his right-hand pants pocket. He fished around for a moment, then pulled something up. A flash of silver hanging down from Danny's hand caught Steve's eye and his own hand went instinctively to his throat as Danny opened his hand to reveal none other than Steve's dog tags, the broken chain spilling off the side of his palm.

Their eyes met, and the next two minutes probably constituted the most loaded…and yet most silent…cargument they had ever had.

Silently Danny reached out all the way after the two minutes was over, and allowed the tags to spill with a clink into McGarrett's upturned left palm. Quickly Steve pulled one of the tags off the broken chain. He grasped it in his right hand as he nimbly tied the two loose ends of the metal chain together. He lifted it over his head and tucked the lone remaining tag and chain down under his shirt. Then he looked up at Danny.

Danny, who for all their referrals to dogs earlier, somewhat resembled the RCA dog at the moment with his head cocked at Steve like he couldn't figure out where the crazy was coming from this time. Steve gave him a small smile, then reached out, grabbed Danny's wrist and turned his hand so the palm faced up. He placed the second dog tag into that palm and closed Danny's fingers around it.

Not entirely certain of himself, now, Steve just shrugged and smiled sheepishly before turning back to face the front of the car. He heard Danny's keys jingle and watched as Danny leaned forward and left and put them into the ignition, then turned it so the car purred to life.

Steve shot an' _Are we okay?'_ look across at his partner, only to find that Danny was studying the engraved words on Steve's tag. It occurred to him maybe he needed to explain his logic to Danny, but he wasn't sure if he could make his voice work well enough to do it. So he just pulled back onto the road and continued the drive to HQ.

* * *

><p>When Danny went by Steve's the next morning to pick him up for work, he was already in the passenger seat before McGarrett made it out of the house. When Steve slid into the driver's seat, he found something draped over the steering wheel. Shutting the door with his left hand, he picked up the long silver chain with his right. From it hung the dog tag he'd given Danny. Steve inspected it for a moment, then turned to look at his partner.<p>

"It's titanium," Danny explained, his voice low and gravelly. "It won't break."

"But I wanted you to keep this one," Steve said, flicking the tag with his finger.

"I thought sailors had to keep their tags on at all times," Danny said. "You have to wear both."

"They wouldn't let you back with me at the hospital," Steve said quietly, thumbing the black soft rubber the dog tag was encased in. "That's why you were so angry yesterday when you picked me up from the hospital, because of that."

"I guess Five-O doesn't mean jack shit when the Administrator's got his panties in a twist," Danny scoffed. "Bastard."

"Well, if you've got this," Steve said, holding the titanium chain and its tag up in the air, "and you show it to them, they'll let you back from now on, even if we're not in Hawaii." Steve shrugged a little. "I changed my Next of Kin notice online after you dropped me off last night. It says my closest family is whoever has one of my dog tags." He chuckled. "I had to get on the phone with them and explain."

"I don't understand," Danny frowned. "Why would you want to give me the same entitlement as fam—"

Danny blushed and Steve ducked his head and chuckled. "Here, take it," he said, handing the whole thing back to Danny. "Just tell me where you got the chain and I'll get one for mine."

Clearing his throat a few times, Danny nodded once, lifted the chain and put it slowly over his head. He then undid his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. He flinched a little when the coolness of the chain and tag settled amongst the hair on his chest, and the flushed skin of his neck. He buttoned his shirt, tightened the knot in his tie, and looked over to find Steve staring at every move he made.

And it was all feeling just a little too much like exchanging letter jackets or class rings in high school, truth be told. So Danny did the only thing he could.

"Are you telling me," he said, and the blush stayed in place in spite of the voice that was rapidly rising to rant levels, "that not only do I have to traipse around this godforsaken volcanically heated hellhole sweating like I've been in a sauna for twenty hours solid, but now I have to endure the added torture of metal grating around my tender neck, all because you know you're going to nearly get yourself killed, like, every day from here on out and you want to make sure I can come back to watch you _die_?"

Steve thought about it for a moment and decided playing along was the best option.

"Well…yeah," Steve said with a nod.

"You are such a prick."

The right side of Steve's mouth arched into a smile as he pulled out of his driveway. Danny just harrumphed. Several times. Loudly.

Steve's smile widened, and stayed that way all the way to HQ.

And if Danny had a huge grin on his face when they got out of the car? Well, Steve wasn't going to be the one to tell anyone why.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I have no clue if you can do what Steve did but I figure since this is fan fiction, I could do whatever I wanted, even if not realistic!


	11. With the Body

**Cargument 11: With the Body**

Steve grabs the door handle, lifts it halfway, and stops. He looks at Danny over the roof of the Camaro, waiting a beat until Danny's eyes meet his. Danny's eyes, which are burning fire at him right now, and Steve knows he's gone and done yet another thing to earn a hand-punctuated diatribe from his partner.

He sighs quietly, lifts the handle and folds himself into the driver's seat. He levers the seat back as far as it will go. Funny how Danny had driven to the crime scene but isn't insisting upon driving back. In fact, Steve thinks as he shuts the door and puts the key in the ignition, Danny hasn't said a thing yet. Steve is certain that will change in a few seconds.

But it doesn't. Steve has a fairly good idea that the source of Danny's ire this time has something to do with the fact that Steve had leapt across a small chasm to catch a suspect when it turned out the team had gone up the wrong side of what was really more of a foothill than a mountain. He isn't altogether certain why a five-foot gap that was easy for him to bridge with his long legs and ability to get to a good speed before jumping, a move that got them their man and put an end to a string of murders, would make Danny go completely silent.

Maybe for a change it wasn't Steve that pissed Danny off. Although Steve has grave doubts about that. It's _always_ Steve that pisses Danny off on a case. He doesn't rant nearly as much at the bad guys as he does at his partner, and they're the ones breaking the law to begin with. Well, sometimes Steve and Danny toe over the line, but it's all for a good cause.

Steve looks askance at Danny as he pulls away from the scene and drives along the single-lane dirt access road. Danny looks at him again and his lips purse into a thin, angry line. Steve looks away and pouts, though he's hard-pressed to ever admit he does so.

Danny's left hand fidgets and moves along his left thigh, rubbing rough and hard with his palm like he's trying to wipe something dirty off it. Steve's right hand twitches. Maybe the dirty thing is something Steve did he's not aware of?

The left hand stops moving. Now it comes up and cards through its owner's blond hair, bringing it even more out of its usual coiffed state than the run up to the edge of the chasm had not twenty minutes earlier.

Steve turns to look, to watch and study the movement, and sees Danny's fingers tug on his hair just a bit on the second pass through. Steve shifts a little bit in the seat, angling his body slightly toward the passenger side, though he's not really aware that he's done it.

Danny gives his hair one last tug at the crown of his head, then brings his left hand down, stopping only long enough to smooth down the front of his wrinkled button-down dress shirt. Then the hand stills in his lap and he turns to eye Steve.

Steve returns the look as the Camaro reaches a two-lane paved road at last. Steve stops the car for a moment and the corners of his mouth turn up just a little, but Danny doesn't respond except to look away, concentrating on something outside his own passenger window.

A deep breath and a very quiet exhale, and Steve's pulling the car onto the asphalt road, left, and sees Danny's head whip toward him. Danny's tilted his head, he has a little frown and there are question marks in his eyes.

Steve takes a page from the Danny Book of Communication and waves his hand in his partner's general direction, hoping it 'sounds' like he knows this isn't the way back to the palace, nor the way back to Danny's apartment or Steve's house.

Danny stares at him a few seconds longer, then seems to relax into the seat for the first time since they got in. He leans his head back on the headrest and shifts just slightly so that his body is angled toward the driver's side, though he's not really aware that he's done so.

Steve looks at him, watches him settle, and thinks maybe Danny was just upset because he gets scared whenever Steve does something like jumping across chasms. After all, just because Steve's confident in his ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, something he knows Danny's pointed out to him several times already, that doesn't mean that Danny's heart doesn't clench just a bit whenever Steve runs off to do just that.

Steve supposes he should apologize for frightening his partner, even though that's not something he's really used to doing at all. But Danny's eyes have closed, and his face actually looks peaceful with nary a line or wrinkle to be found. He looks younger like this, and maybe it's testament to their three years together as partners that Steve's driving no longer makes Danny's face twist in a combination of constipation and rational concern while he's clutching the grab handle.

Danny opens his eyes, takes in the fact that his partner's staring at him, looks pointedly out the front window and back to Steve again, and Steve takes the hint, reverting his gaze to the road before them. It's a deserted road, and Steve knows it like the back of his hand from trips he and his family used to make to the very foothills where 5-0 captured a murderer today.

He smiles, because he's making the islands his father and mother loved so much safe for all Hawaiians and island visitors. He catches movement and looks across to find that Danny's smiling, too, although his eyes are closed.

Yeah, Steve will probably continue to shave minutes, days, hours and years from his partner's life on a daily or weekly basis just because he does what he knows he is able to. And Danny will probably continue to follow his partner into the fray even if he's bitching all the way about the precise 'how' of it all, because even that first day they worked together, that's what Danny did, and he's never _ever_ not had Steve's back since.

But it all boils down to this right here. To the fact that they've grown to a point where body language, looks, and sighs are all that's required to get them beyond what used to qualify as sometimes epic hour-long rants that left Steve feeling like a chewed-out ten-year old. To the fact that he knows and Danny knows, that Danny only gets upset because he cares. And to the fact that he knows and Danny knows, that Steve only does what he does because it's who he is…not because he wants to give Danny a heart attack.

Neither of them will ever change their stripes, and neither would want the other to. But, Steve thinks, it's much nicer and much more peaceful when their arguments can happen this way rather than the way they did the first couple of years: by talking with the body, rather than with words.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: I've got 90 more mini-stories to write in my "100 Ways to Love Your Husband HIS Way" collection, so I'm closing the Carguments collection with this, my eleventh offering. Thank you to those of you who've enjoyed my carguments. They've been fun and, in some cases, rather odd, but a joy to write, as always!


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